Halloween Pumpkin Cake

Katie here!  So I've been cruising Pinterest lately and got inspired by a pin with a pumpkin shaped cake.  Disclosure here - I've only ever made one other cake in my life, from a box, and it was a bust.  I clicked on the pinterest link and read the blog on the person who added this pin.  They were trying out cakes from a cookbook, which I don't own, and quite honestly seemed way beyond my skill set.  So I turned to the google and found on the Joy of Baking the below recipe, which I doubled to accommodate the amount of cake and icing I would need to make this masterpiece.  The recipe is for a traditional 2 layered cake.  In order to get the shape and size of the pumpkin I used a bunt cake pan and cooked two cakes.  I sliced off the bottom of each to create a flat surface and iced each flat side.  I then put the two flat iced sides together to create the pumpkin shape.  I used the some of the leftover pieces from creating the flat bottoms as the stem.  And my son pointed out that the pumpkin was missing a face, so I grabbed some chocolate chips for the face.  To create the orange coloring I used food color dye and after following the instructions on the number of drops using yellow and red, I just kept slowly adding each color until I got my desired orange hue.

There are of course a few shortcuts here if you don't want to go the route of made from scratch from start to finish.  You can always buy spice cake mix at the store and icing and just add the food color to get the icing to the desired color.

Overall I think the cake was a hit. I can tell you my Son was quite proud of the end results and still continues to stuff his face days later from this cake.

Please note that the below recipes are the doubled amounts vs. a single cake portions as indicated on the Joy of Baking link.

Cake Recipe:
1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
2.5 cups light brown sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups canned pure pumpkin puree
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in center of oven.  Butter and flour the bunt cake pan.  Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add the eggs, one at a time.  Add pumpkin and vanilla extract and mix well.  In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.  Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to the pumpkin batter.  Pour half of batter in bunt cake pan, smoothing to make even.  Cook for 35-40 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  Let cool for 10 minutes and then take cake out and cool on wire rack.  Repeat process for remaining batter.  Make sure cakes are completely cooled prior to icing.

Frosting recipe:
16 oz cream cheese, room temp
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp
4 tbs pure maple syrup
6 cups confectioners' sugar

Combine the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add the maple syrup and sugar and mix until combined.  Do not over mix the frosting to thin.  Add food dye to obtain orange coloring.

Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.